4 ms·

Some things I learned so far in bootstrapping my part-time startup

32 points by farmdawgnation 13y ago

aaronbrethorst 13y ago
I read your blog post and the front page of Anchor Tab and I still have no idea what the product does.
- farmdawgnation 13y ago
  Like I mentioned in the blog post, we have a messaging problem. Though the blog post really wasn't intended to communicate that message. Ha. Our product is an email marketing toolbar that sits the bottom of your blog or website and can accept email addresses onto an e-mail mailing list. So, let's say you run a company called Widgets, Inc, and a part of that is you have an email list that gets an email each time you post a new blog. You could add an Anchor Tab to your page as an elegant way of getting users onto that email list. (They enter their email onto the bar at the bottom of the page and it's added to your Constant Contact or MailChimp list.) Does that make sense or am I just perpetuating the fail?
  - jamesjporter 13y ago
    I think it would really, really help to have a few example images of what the damn thing actually looks like on a webpage. People are inherently visual creatures and imho this would go a long way.
    - cocoflunchy 13y ago
      The bar itself is on the webpage, but you're right, I think adding a few different screenshots would be even clearer.
    - farmdawgnation 13y ago
      That's a good thought. There is an example on the page, but we do need to draw some more attention to it. Maybe we'll do it in style using the <blink> tag. ;) But seriously, thanks again, this is really helpful!
  - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    Ahh, I think I see what my problem was. I originally read the blog entry and looked at your website on my iPhone 5, and the control didn't pop up then. Now that I look at it again on my desktop, I immediately get it. This, of course, does seem like a major problem, though. I'm actually in the market for something almost exactly like this, but 50% of my audience accesses my site via iOS devices. Also, take a look at how Hello Bar explains their product: http://www.hellobar.com http://www.hellobar.com good luck! edit: I think your blog should use your product, too.
    - farmdawgnation 13y ago
      Thanks for the feedback. If you want to find me on Twitter and send me your email I can make sure we alert you when we roll out mobile. Hopefully soon. My twitter handle is farmdawgnation. It actually was at one point. I turned it off a few weeks ago because it was still pointing to an old list. I use Squarespace for my blog and I haven't quite taken the time yet to wire up a feed burner and whatnot yet. One of the items on my long to do list. Ha. Thanks man!
- cocoflunchy 13y ago
  Really? I found the front page very clear... They make a bar that you embed on your website and that allows people to subscribe to a mailing list.
dshipper 13y ago
Nice post, and the home page is well designed but it's hard to tell what the product does without a screenshot or walkthrough of some sort. It sounds reminiscent of HelloBar although you say in your post that it isn't like HelloBar at all - bad sign. I'd also recommend saying explicitly a few of the customers you're targeting e.g. bloggers, companies with large audiences etc etc. Good luck!
- farmdawgnation 13y ago
  Thanks for the feedback man! And yeah, I guess part of our problem with the Hellobar comparison is that we're solving a problem they've been solving for a small subset of their users for awhile. They're really optimized for "I have a user on a page, and I want them to go to X." X could be a product information page, or a page to add their email to a list. We're optimized for "I have a user on a page, and I want them to put their email on my X list so they can get my updates." where X is the name of your email marketing service. That distinction means we can get some tighter integration and a few more UX brownie points for that use case than would make sense for Hellobar to implement.
  - rubinelli 13y ago
    A more apt comparison would be https://www.getdrip.com/ https://www.getdrip.com/ by Rob Walling (one of the organizers of Microconf) although that is still in closed beta.
  - Felix21 13y ago
    Aha. If passive email is what your product is for then you need to: 1. make the bottom bar slightly bigger 2. allow me to be able to add a picture of the lead magnet im offering 3. the bar should slide up after after 1-2 seconds This will result in a 3x bump in conversion(if i remember correctly), when compared to the side bar opt in form on most blogs, so if you were getting 50 subscribers a day, this will increase it to about 200. You are essentially a saas version of http://instantslideup.com/ http://instantslideup.com/ and your target audience is BLOGGERS.
    - 13y ago
tarr11 13y ago
". As it turns out, we had enough people enjoy the beta and sign on after the 30 day trial that we're covering our monthly systems operations expenses. " This is great, congrats. Would be willing to share more information about this? Conversion rates? Were these "real" customers or people that you know who paid?
- farmdawgnation 13y ago
  I'm not going to go into conversion rates and exact numbers for the moment. I avoided that in the blog post mostly because we haven't, as a team, had the conversation about how much we want to publish in that regard, and I don't want to make any unilateral decisions about it. I will say that most of the current customers do know us, but a majority of them know us because they have some business relationship with my partners, Cirion Group. It makes sense because it was these same clients who first made the need for such a product known to my partners, and who, however indirectly, sparked the idea that made this happen. Also, most of our advertising has been word of mouth up until this point and will likely stay that way until we fix the messaging problem. So, do they know us? Yes. Are they are posse of friends? No. There's no quid pro quo. They're people who, like us, are running a business, and aren't likely to buy something because it'll make our socks roll up and down.
  - tarr11 13y ago
    Fair enough. Thanks for sharing.
rubinelli 13y ago
I like the idea, it seems like there is a pretty large, mostly unexplored market there, but the thing that personally makes me pause as a potential customer is that I have no idea how to write those emails. If you could create a micro-course that illustrates what a mailing list should be like, or even bake some kind of "meta wizard" into your product, I'd be much more willing to sign up.
- farmdawgnation 13y ago
  That's an awesome idea. I'm going to pass on a direct link to this comment to the Cirion guys. That's right in their wheel house.

I read your blog post and the front page of Anchor Tab and I still have no idea what the product does.

farmdawgnation 13y ago
Like I mentioned in the blog post, we have a messaging problem. Though the blog post really wasn't intended to communicate that message. Ha. Our product is an email marketing toolbar that sits the bottom of your blog or website and can accept email addresses onto an e-mail mailing list. So, let's say you run a company called Widgets, Inc, and a part of that is you have an email list that gets an email each time you post a new blog. You could add an Anchor Tab to your page as an elegant way of getting users onto that email list. (They enter their email onto the bar at the bottom of the page and it's added to your Constant Contact or MailChimp list.) Does that make sense or am I just perpetuating the fail?
- jamesjporter 13y ago
  I think it would really, really help to have a few example images of what the damn thing actually looks like on a webpage. People are inherently visual creatures and imho this would go a long way.
  - cocoflunchy 13y ago
    The bar itself is on the webpage, but you're right, I think adding a few different screenshots would be even clearer.
  - farmdawgnation 13y ago
    That's a good thought. There is an example on the page, but we do need to draw some more attention to it. Maybe we'll do it in style using the <blink> tag. ;) But seriously, thanks again, this is really helpful!
- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  Ahh, I think I see what my problem was. I originally read the blog entry and looked at your website on my iPhone 5, and the control didn't pop up then. Now that I look at it again on my desktop, I immediately get it. This, of course, does seem like a major problem, though. I'm actually in the market for something almost exactly like this, but 50% of my audience accesses my site via iOS devices. Also, take a look at how Hello Bar explains their product: http://www.hellobar.com http://www.hellobar.com good luck! edit: I think your blog should use your product, too.
  - farmdawgnation 13y ago
    Thanks for the feedback. If you want to find me on Twitter and send me your email I can make sure we alert you when we roll out mobile. Hopefully soon. My twitter handle is farmdawgnation. It actually was at one point. I turned it off a few weeks ago because it was still pointing to an old list. I use Squarespace for my blog and I haven't quite taken the time yet to wire up a feed burner and whatnot yet. One of the items on my long to do list. Ha. Thanks man!
cocoflunchy 13y ago
Really? I found the front page very clear... They make a bar that you embed on your website and that allows people to subscribe to a mailing list.

Nice post, and the home page is well designed but it's hard to tell what the product does without a screenshot or walkthrough of some sort. It sounds reminiscent of HelloBar although you say in your post that it isn't like HelloBar at all - bad sign. I'd also recommend saying explicitly a few of the customers you're targeting e.g. bloggers, companies with large audiences etc etc. Good luck!

farmdawgnation 13y ago
Thanks for the feedback man! And yeah, I guess part of our problem with the Hellobar comparison is that we're solving a problem they've been solving for a small subset of their users for awhile. They're really optimized for "I have a user on a page, and I want them to go to X." X could be a product information page, or a page to add their email to a list. We're optimized for "I have a user on a page, and I want them to put their email on my X list so they can get my updates." where X is the name of your email marketing service. That distinction means we can get some tighter integration and a few more UX brownie points for that use case than would make sense for Hellobar to implement.
- rubinelli 13y ago
  A more apt comparison would be https://www.getdrip.com/ https://www.getdrip.com/ by Rob Walling (one of the organizers of Microconf) although that is still in closed beta.
- Felix21 13y ago
  Aha. If passive email is what your product is for then you need to: 1. make the bottom bar slightly bigger 2. allow me to be able to add a picture of the lead magnet im offering 3. the bar should slide up after after 1-2 seconds This will result in a 3x bump in conversion(if i remember correctly), when compared to the side bar opt in form on most blogs, so if you were getting 50 subscribers a day, this will increase it to about 200. You are essentially a saas version of http://instantslideup.com/ http://instantslideup.com/ and your target audience is BLOGGERS.
  - 13y ago

tarr11 13y ago

". As it turns out, we had enough people enjoy the beta and sign on after the 30 day trial that we're covering our monthly systems operations expenses. " This is great, congrats. Would be willing to share more information about this? Conversion rates? Were these "real" customers or people that you know who paid?

farmdawgnation 13y ago
I'm not going to go into conversion rates and exact numbers for the moment. I avoided that in the blog post mostly because we haven't, as a team, had the conversation about how much we want to publish in that regard, and I don't want to make any unilateral decisions about it. I will say that most of the current customers do know us, but a majority of them know us because they have some business relationship with my partners, Cirion Group. It makes sense because it was these same clients who first made the need for such a product known to my partners, and who, however indirectly, sparked the idea that made this happen. Also, most of our advertising has been word of mouth up until this point and will likely stay that way until we fix the messaging problem. So, do they know us? Yes. Are they are posse of friends? No. There's no quid pro quo. They're people who, like us, are running a business, and aren't likely to buy something because it'll make our socks roll up and down.
- tarr11 13y ago
  Fair enough. Thanks for sharing.

rubinelli 13y ago

I like the idea, it seems like there is a pretty large, mostly unexplored market there, but the thing that personally makes me pause as a potential customer is that I have no idea how to write those emails. If you could create a micro-course that illustrates what a mailing list should be like, or even bake some kind of "meta wizard" into your product, I'd be much more willing to sign up.

farmdawgnation 13y ago
That's an awesome idea. I'm going to pass on a direct link to this comment to the Cirion guys. That's right in their wheel house.